cover image POWER LINES: Two Years on South Africa's Borders

POWER LINES: Two Years on South Africa's Borders

Jason Carter, . . National Geographic, $26 (320pp) ISBN 978-0-7922-8012-5

In this illuminating and textured, if pedestrian account of life in the Peace Corps, the grandson of former President Jimmy Carter (who has written the introduction) shows that he, too, might be headed for high places. After graduating from college, Carter spent two years in the late 1990s volunteering in a former black homeland, as South Africa tried to build itself anew in the aftermath of apartheid. Assigned to the "tiny, and poor, community of Lochiel," Carter takes the political and turns it into the personal as he writes candidly of his attempts to help create a new curriculum; he reflects on his efforts to raise teachers' self-esteem without trampling on their turf. Carter depicts life with humor and honesty and considers the limits of his stint, the way Western culture has become part of South Africans' lives and his guilt at enjoying its trappings as he travels around the country. Now a law student at the University of Georgia, Carter provides a lens on contemporary South African life that demonstrates his optimism for the future, tempered by his acknowledgment of continuing racial tension. The result will make readers sympathize with the author and empathize with the situations he describes without being maudlin. 16 pages of color photos not seen by PW.(June)

Forecast:The famous name is the angle booksellers will play up here, especially in a time when Africa's conflicts have taken a back seat to other countries' troubles. If Carter shakes a lot of hands on his four-city author tour, he could broaden his audience.